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Even as Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s outgoing president, continues to refuse to sign a crucial Bilateral Security Agreement with the U.S., claiming that the Afghan military protects 93 percent of the country and therefore is more than prepared to take over from the U.S. military come January 2015, the ten candidates to take his place at Afghanistan’s helm have all pledged to sign the agreement. But in spite of the fact that I readily appreciate Washington’s insistence to secure a long-term military partnership with Kabul––to abandon Afghanistan now would reverse any gains made by the U.S. in its twelve-and-a-half-year struggle against the Taliban, and render futile the sacrifices of all American servicemen and women ever deployed to the region––I am likewise convinced that Karzai’s recalcitrance, however frustrating and seemingly undue, has some merit. Afghanistan does, after all, get the short end of the stick in this bargain. Read the rest of this entry →

On Jan. 12, the New York Times released an editorial ahead of a much-anticipated Syrian peace summit on the 22nd, in which the Times voiced its approval of a tentative proposal by the State Department to resume “nonlethal military aid” to the Syrian opposition. Suspended last month when a repository of munitions intended for the moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) was instead seized by the radical Islamic Front, this aid, the Times explains, would simultaneously reinforce the FSA in its ongoing war with Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Armed Forces, and reassure Saudi Arabia (which backs the opposition) of the U.S.’s continued support amidst the Obama administration’s aggressive courting of Iran, a bitter rival of the Saudis. Read the rest of this entry →

Twelve years have passed since President George W. Bush declared before a nation traumatized and enraged by the events of 9/11 the start of a “crusade . . . on terrorism,”[1] a so-called war on terror, after which he authorized the invasion of Afghanistan, where al Qaeda was known to have established itself. The War in Afghanistan, which still rages unabated, presaged a greater U.S. military presence in the Middle East, and was eventually followed by the Iraq War in 2003. Today, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined, have cost the U.S. a staggering $6 trillion, nearly a third of the nation’s $17 trillion national debt, and the lives of 6,772 of its soldiers. To what end? Read the rest of this entry →

During his first appearance at the annual U.N. General Assembly, and in what pundits have since baptized a “charm offensive,” Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s President, professed his commitment to a new era of constructive engagement with the U.S. Indeed, his refusal to make concrete promises notwithstanding, in going so far as to court American business leaders and to refute his controversial predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s staunch denial of the Holocaust, Mr. Rouhani seems almost desperate for the U.S. to respond well to his repeated invocations for détente. Read the rest of this entry →